A former African Boxing Union (ABU) Heavyweight Champion, Coach Ngozika Ekwelum, Wednesday, sought financial help to undergo surgeries and treatment of cancerous prostrate and other health complications.
Ekwelum, who excelled among his contemporaries in the entire Africa and Europe heavyweight competitions in late 60s and 80s, is currently bedridden with blood urination, swollen legs, bladder and body pains.
Speaking to Blueprint at his makeshift apartment in Awka, Anambra State capital, Coach Ekwelum, whose landlord has equally ejected from his three bedrooms flat due to non-payment of lent, recalled that he had spent millions on several surgeries but yet to be healed.
He said he had written to the Anambra state government to at least pay him part of backlog of salaries he was owed having worked with them for long as a Coach.
“There was a day I collapsed. It was when my wife returned from market she got someone around and I was ferried to a hospital like dead man. At the hospital, I was revived, underwent series of diagnosis and surgeries. But still not treated well. I have been sitting in one place for over three months now with swollen legs. I need financial help to undergo further treatments,” he said.